


Small Talk

by saltfromthesea



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow series - Gemma T. Leslie
Genre: Fluff, M/M, One Shot, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Post-Book: Carry On
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 05:27:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5444903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltfromthesea/pseuds/saltfromthesea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Baz, who just wants to shower in peace, is forced, much to his chagrin, to talk on the phone. </p><p>Simon/Baz (duh), with some bonus Baz-and-Penny-as-buddies because that's all I want right now.</p><p>Quick little one-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Talk

I take long showers. So sue me.

It’s the Pitch in me. We love fire. Crave the heat the way…well, the way Snow craves scones. It’s hard to come by now, cold-blooded as I am, but hey, at least with hot water, there’s very little chance that flammable old me’ll light myself up like a month-old Christmas tree.

Of course, Snow, the cheapskate, is always worrying about the state of the water heater—like a quick **_Some like it hot!_** wouldn’t take care of a little cold-water only problem. But he says some things are better the old-fashioned way, which, whatever. Also he doesn’t want to make the neighbors suspicious.

The steam is rising in thick clouds around me, and I close my eyes and tilt my face up into the spray of water. _Ahh._

It occurs to me quite suddenly that this has been a particularly luxurious shower—normally Snow is rapping on the door about twenty minutes in, ostensibly to make sure I haven’t used all the hot water, although, “I wouldn’t be pleased if you drowned in there, either,” he’d also informed me. The sentimental fool.

But he’s nothing if not reliable, which means now I’m worried. I shut off the water and shake the wet hair out of my eyes before slinging a towel around my hips and cracking open the door to the bathroom. Quite a lot of steam comes with me.

I can hear his voice, which is reassuring. I take a few steps forward, tracking water into the hall with me, and there he is, sitting cross-legged on the couch, his wings unfolded idly behind him. He’s got a cell phone clamped between his shoulder and his ear, his head cocked to the side, and I swear if it were a landline, he’d be playing with the cord like a teenage girl. Or like a teenage girl in an eighties movie, I guess, since it’s not like landlines exist anymore. He’s chattering away like a monkey, and his ridiculous hair is an almost molten gold in the last dregs of the sun.

I can’t help myself—I freeze for a minute, just to watch him, skulking in the shadows of the hall like some horrible vampire caricature. Muscle memory. It’s hard to remember that I’m allowed to look at him now.

Snow, on the other hand doesn’t seem to have the same problem. He must catch a glimpse of me out of the corner of his eye, because he turns his head. Much to my dismay, the sight of me in nothing but a towel does not cause him to go visibly weak with desire. Instead, he grimaces and stands up, covering the mouth of the phone with his hand. “Thank God,” he hisses, doing a weird-but-weirdly-cute sort of waddle towards me. “I thought I was going to _burst_ —” again, sadly, not with desire, “—you’ve been there _forever_.”

This is how pathetically far gone I am. Even the boy’s full-bladder walk is adorable to me.

Looking pained, he shuffles around me towards the bathroom, stopping only to slap his phone into my chest. “Here,” he says, “talk to Penny for a second, would you?” And then the bathroom door is clicking shut behind him and I’m standing in the middle of the hallway, soaking wet, holding a drooping towel with one hand and a cell phone, out of which I can hear the tinny prattle of Penelope Bunce, in the other.

For a moment, I just stand there, a puddle forming beneath my feet. Snow clearly didn’t tell her he was leaving—I can hear her saying “Simon? Are you still there?” from her end. So, ever the epitome of eloquence that I am, I raise the phone to my ear and say, “Um.”

Look, let’s get this out of the way. I just need to go on record and say that, actually, I have nothing against Penelope Bunce. Believe me, no one is more surprised by this than I am. I mean, if you’d told me two years ago that Penelope Bunce would still be in my life after we graduated Watford, I’d have said you were high.

Of course, if you’d told me two years ago that I’d have Simon Snow’s tongue in my mouth on a regular basis, I’d also have said you were high, so that shows you what I know.

So it’s not that I dislike Penelope Bunce. Anymore. Actually, Bunce and I have gone through quite a lot together. It’s just that, by “a lot,” I mean life-and-death stuff. The kind of stuff that, while it makes it difficult for you to hate each other, also doesn’t really lend itself to small talk. We can debate magical theory until the cows come home, and we can even carry a more personal conversation just fine, as long as Snow is there too. But there's just something about a phone that makes things weird.

There’s silence on the other end of the line, and for a moment, I think she’s hung up. Then there’s a crackle, and she parrots my oh-so-proper greeting back at me. “Um,” she says. “Baz?”

“Hiya Bunce,” I say, and wince. I’m feeling very exposed in my just-a-towel ensemble, so I hike it up a little higher around my torso and wander over to the couch, like this will somehow help.

Okay, if we’re being honest here, the truth of the matter is that I’m a little jealous of Bunce. It’s not that I don’t want Snow to have friends— _obviously,_ because that would be _insane behavior_ , and also I have several perfectly good friends of my own.

It’s just that, well, they’ve been so close for so long. That’s not the kind of thing you can just break into. I don’t know if that’s the kind of thing you _should_ just break into. All I know is that, sometimes, he seems lighter when she’s around.

“So, um,” she’s saying into the phone, “how was your holiday?”

“Fine, thanks,” I say, the stilted politeness making me want to gag a little. “Yours? Surprised you aren’t back here yet.”

“Oh,” she says, sounding surprised, “Simon didn’t tell you? I’m in America for a few weeks, visiting my boyfriend.”

He had told me, actually, I’d just forgotten about it until now. “Right, right,” I say vaguely. “Mike.”

“Micah,” she corrects, then adds, “and I _know_ you know that.”

Whoops. Guilty. Still, I have a lot of ground to make up here, so I adopt that lofty tone I know she hates, and say, “Well, we’re not up to much over here. I’m just lounging around naked, as one does.”

“Oh, as one does,” she says, and I can tell she’s trying to figure out if she should be taking me seriously or not. “Well, all I can say is that if you’re lounging around naked _on my couch_ , you’re a dead man.”

“I am on your couch,” I tell her. “I’ve also just put my feet on your coffee table. And I'm already a dead man. Most of the time.”

She growls in my ear. “Basilton Grimm-Pitch,” she declares, “you’re more in need of a cold shower than anyone else I have _ever_ met, and thank you _so_ much for providing me with this lovely mental image.”

I can’t help it—she’s caught me off-guard. I think I startle us both when I bark a laugh into the phone. A moment later, she’s laughing too.

“I don’t know what Simon sees in you,” she says.

And that cools me down right away, because neither do I.

I don’t want her to know this though, of course, so I cover quickly, drawling, “Money, of course. I am well-equipped to keep him supplied with scones for the foreseeable future.”

It comes out too self-deprecating. I should have said it was my looks.

And Bunce is always quicker on the draw than I give her credit for.

“I don’t mean it, you know,” she says grudgingly, and I cock an eyebrow, even though I know she can’t see it. “I do know what he sees in you. And, Baz?”

I swallow. “Yeah.”

“Well I’m, I’m glad you’re there with him. For him. Both. I’m glad he’s got someone looking out for him. And, well. You mean the world to him, you know?”

Snow’s out of the bathroom now—probably has been for a little while. He’s standing where I was in the hall just a few minutes ago, leaning against the hall, watching me. He catches me looking and a smile lights up his face, even though, really, he just saw me twenty—okay, forty—minutes ago, before I got in the shower. He’s so free with his affection, always. Like it costs him nothing to give it away.

“Likewise,” I say into the phone.

“I know,” she says. “Otherwise I wouldn’t let you on my couch at all.”

I grin, and then Snow is sliding onto the couch beside me, plucking the phone from my hand. “Hey, Penny,” he says, wrinkling his nose at me. “Sorry, I’m back.”

I lean into him, just for a moment, my fingers light on his thigh, and press a kiss to his temple. Then I’m up and off to find some clothes.

 

A little while later, I come out of his room, fully clothed and mostly dry, though my skin is still slightly pink from the hot water. Also, I’m convinced my hair is doing something weird in the back. I’m trying to pat it down as I wander through the apartment, looking for him. His phone’s on the couch, so I assume he’s done talking to Bunce, which means he’s probably got his head in the refrigerator.

As suspected, I find him in the kitchen, making short work of a sandwich the size of my head. He grins sheepishly at me as he gulps it down.

“Hi,” he says, swiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. “Got hungry.”

“Well, of course you did,” I say, leaning against the counter. “It’s been, what, a good hour since you last had a meal?”

“Right, exactly,” he says, walking behind me to dump his plate in the sink. For once, I don’t watch him do it—I’m running my finger over the countertop, distracted. Thinking about Bunce’s parting words to me.

“How was the rest of your phone call?” I ask him, and a moment later, he comes up behind me, slipping his arms around my waist and pressing his face into my shoulder blade.

“Jealous?” he teases, and I feel his mouth move against my back.

I turn in his arms so we’re face-to-face (almost, anyway—I have to look down at him. Just a little). “Surprisingly, no,” I say, and when he quirks an eyebrow, I correct myself. “Well, less than I was before I talked to her, anyway.”

He smiles. Leans forward to nudge his nose against my jaw, right under my ear. I bring my hand up to cup the back of his neck. “All part of my master plan,” he says.

“Hey,” I protest. “I’m the one with the evil plans, here.”

“I didn’t say _evil_ ,” he says, and I feel his breath on my face, and close my eyes.

He slides his hands up beneath the hem of my shirt, fingers splayed on either side of my spine, and then stops abruptly. “You’re oddly room-temperature right now, Baz,” he says, drawing back suspiciously. “Hey! Did you use all the hot water again?”

Whether or not my body temperature is any different doesn’t matter. He feels the same to me as always: like an inferno. The kind of heat that, even if I live a hundred lifetimes, I’ll never, ever get enough of. Maybe that’s why I can never seem to stop touching him. Not that he seems to mind.

“Simon,” I say, grabbing a fistful of his shirt and tugging him into me again, “get over it.” And he’s smiling, oh, he’s smiling, and he’s clumsy and laughing as he comes towards me, but like it always does eventually, his mouth finds mine, and the heat of it puts every fire I’ve ever cast to shame.

A hundred thousand lifetimes, and it still won't be enough.


End file.
